Michigan School Boards and now Michigan State Police think teen blogs are dangerous.

…the Michigan State Police say online threats among children is a growing problem. It used to be that kids wrote their feelings down in a diary or a journal, but now kids are turning to the internet to post their feelings for the whole world to see. The Michigan State Police says some of those ideas shared on the internet could get them into serious trouble.

Web logging, or “blogging” as most know it, is an outlet for many kids to make their opinions public. Most of the time, it’s used to talk about kid matters like school work or prom, but blogging can also take a more serious turn.

Lt. Tim Lee, Michigan State Police Department: “T hey can say horrible things about a principal or horrible things about their parents, or horrible things about the kid next door, and they feel like no one’s going to find them.”

But what kids often don’t realize is that saying horrible things about a person on the internet could get them into trouble with the law.

Lt. Tim Lee: “That person goes out there, reads the posting and says, yeah I’m nervous about this, or I feel uncomfortable, I’m afraid for my life. They contact law enforcement, and that’s when we get involved.”

And Lee says that anything that would be taken as a verbal threat, is treated the same way posted on the net. Though many times kids don’t act on the threats, police still take them seriously. Anonymity on the net won’t save them.

In November a 16 year old Alaska teen was arrested for the solicitation of murder and first degree murder of her mother. She had written about it on her blog.

Evangelical blogger stalked
Eric Ragle, owner of the blog Evangelical Underground has pressed charges against a stalker who found him through his blog.
The person charged has requested a preliminary hearing next month.

To be painfully honest, I’m currently dealing with a person who for whatever reasons, has decided to contact me in my home, and again at my place of employment. This person only knows me by this blog, so what we really have is a “stalker” type situation.

It goes without saying that not only are these actions grossly inappropriate, they are a bit scary as well.

Threats are never okay in a comment section or by email. And when the boundary is crossed and contact is made without permission into a bloggers life, immediate and strong steps need to be taken for the blogger and the blogger’s family and co-workers safety.

Canadian Conservative Party Website receives threats

The Vice President of the Kingston Conservative Party Riding Party Associations says their Free Dominion website subscribers have received death threats.

5 thousand email subscribers to the site received an email saying, “you will die shortly.”

At least one subscriber thinks it is just a group of teen hackers and had nothing to do with The Conservative Party convention in Montreal this weekend.
Police have been asked to investigate.

“The text they changed on the site made some derogatory remarks toward Republicans that kind of gave me a clue it may have been an American that did the hacking, because they didn’t seem to understand that we don’t have a Republican party in Canada.”